


I Remember When the World Was Ours to Take

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Family Dynamics, Getting Back Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, RomCom tendencies, wedding planner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 14:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14059386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Back when things were simple and he was his best friend and they would lie out back and talk about the future.  The future that always had each other in it





	I Remember When the World Was Ours to Take

**Author's Note:**

> so this fic just came to me the other day and it ended up coming out super easily. also this includes some of my recurring oc's and headcanons:  
> \- boxer, the 3rd briefs kid  
> \- bardock, the son of raditz and lapis/android 17  
> \- future mai is the daughter of launch and mai
> 
> anyway, i hope you all enjoy it!

He knew it was going to be a bad day when he spilled his coffee all over himself.  Trunks stared at the cold, light brown stain spreading over his white button-up and onto his gray trousers and thought, rather morosely, that this was a good metaphor for his entire life.  His life was spilled iced coffee that was making him cold and probably also soaking his boxers.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

This, of course, had to happen when he was on his way to meet with the new caterer they were partnering with--when he had about fifteen different angry text messages from his business partner telling him to hurry up.

Pitifully, he dabbed at himself with the brown paper napkins but it was to no avail.  Even when it dried, he was going to be stained and stinking of coffee. Worse, he had no time to change.  He was going to have to roll up to the meeting looking like this. He had a fairly good grasp on his own charm, at least, and he hoped that in combination with what he _knew_ were winning good looks would make the caterer overlook his sloppy appearance.

Regardless, he had no choice so he had to hike up his (wet, stained) big boy pants and drive to the restaurant where they were meeting the caterer.

He typed the address into his phone’s GPS and plugged it in.  That part he didn’t like. Their previous caterers had their own storefront, but they had also gone out of business.  This new caterer was mostly online orders but was opening up to catering weddings and other venues that could provide a kitchen.  Truthfully, Trunks was only meeting with them because he was desperate, had a wedding in a week with a bride who would _not_ get out of his ass (and didn’t she know he didn’t swing that way?), and his mother knew the caterer’s mother.

He hated relying on his mother’s connections but sometimes he had to just.  Deal with it. She stuck by him when he was at his lowest and had dropped out of college.  He _owed_ her, but he couldn’t ride on her coattails (or in her Beemer) any longer.  He wouldn’t even let her invest in Gemini Wedding Planning no matter how tempting it was.

He took a turn a bit too sharply to avoid thinking about it.  In his shame in dropping out, in not living up to his family name, he had started  to avoid going home. Avoid talking to his parents.

The restaurant came up on his right and he turned again, far too harshly.  Trunks winced as he heard the tires squeal. Hopefully the new caterer didn’t hear that.  Stains aside, he wanted to look professional.

He put his car into park and checked his reflection in the rearview mirror.  He flicked his bangs into his eyes and, satisfied with what he saw, got out of the car.

The hostess happily pointed to where the caterer was waiting for him at a table with his business partner.  He saw Mai giving him a dirty look but only saw the back of the caterer’s head.

“Hi,” he said as he slid into a seat. “Sorry I’m late.  Uh. There was an incident.”

He gestured to the coffee stain.  Mai rolled her eyes, but couldn’t disguise her smile.  Trunks decided to ride that goodwill and hope that it got him out of whatever earful she would give him later.  The business was _technically_ hers.  He was just her partner in crime since he had nothing better to do and a talent at solving puzzles and organizing things.  It wasn’t what he was _supposed_ to be doing, but he had to admit that making people happy was a pretty sweet gig.

“I’m Trunks Briefs.” He leaned forward and held his hand out.

“I know.”

_Oh, right._

Their mothers knew each other, didn’t they?  Trunks looked up at the guy and nearly choked.

“Goten?!” he exclaimed in a high, scratchy, very unprofessional voice.

“So you do remember.”

He didn’t sound angry when he said it but Trunks was still caught off-guard.  He didn’t know Goten had gone into catering. Hell, he hadn’t seen them since they were teenagers.  Since…

“You know each other?” Mai asked.

Where did he even begin?

“Yes,” he said finally.

Goten gestured at the coffee stain and said in that sweet, unfairly charming voice of his, “I thought _I_ was the clumsy one.”

“Ha.”

It was a bad comeback but he was caught off-guard.  Was this his mom’s revenge for not coming around or calling?  Saying she had a new caterer for him after Mai’s uncles’ place went out but failing to mention that it was _Goten._

He looked--good.  He had filled out from his teenage lankiness and was broad-shouldered and buff.  He wore a heather gray t-shirt that showcased that growth. He had grown his hair out, too, into a shaggy cut that framed his face and hit the nape of his neck.  It suited him, he thought.

“So!” Goten said loudly--too loudly.

He caught the tension, then.  He was always the peacemaker between the two of them.  Always calming Trunks down when his temper got the better of him.

“So, after sampling the dishes from your grandma’s deli last week--”

“We what?”

Mai kicked him discreetly under the table.

“I did,” she said. “You were at a meeting with the bride.”

Right.  Trunks rubbed his temples.  Things had been so rushed and tense lately with Pilaf Catering closing, the bride texting him at all hours as if he were a robot and not a human who needed sleep, and his ever looming twenty-eighth birthday coming up at the beginning of November, he was losing track of himself.

“Right, sorry.  Your grandma still has the deli?”

He nodded. “Yeah, her and Papa Ox--uh, my grandfather, Miss Gemini--”

“Call me Mai.”

“Mai.  Right. She and my grandfather decided to combine efforts and I helped them get the catering aspect of it off the ground.  Put that degree I have in hospitality management to good use.”

He didn’t know Goten had a degree in that.  He remembered him talking about going to culinary school.  Back when things were simple and he was his best friend and they would lie out back and talk about the future.  The future that always had each other in it.

“We’re hoping to have you onboard.  At least for this wedding.” Mai sighed and rubbed her temples. “Sorry.  This is all so at once. We’re usually way more professional.”

Goten smiled that reassuring smile of his and Trunks pretended it didn’t do things to him.  Past was past, after all.

“Don’t worry.  It’s fine. I’m glad I can help bail you guys out.  Set me up with the happy couple and we can do a tasting and figure out what they want from us.”

Mai nodded. “I’ll send you along the menu from my unc--our previous caterers and you can work with that and show them what you have.”

Goten gave a thumbs up. “Sounds good.”

The server appeared to take their orders and Trunks was so caught off-guard and that he just pointed to something on the menu without even looking.  The server repeated it and he nodded.

“You don’t want that,” Goten said. “It’s got coriander.”

It was an innocent statement but the implication sat heavily on his shoulders.  Goten still knew a lot about him. Enough to know that he hated coriander.

“It’s fine.”

Something about how he said it made his contrary side come out.

“It is?”

“Yeah.  I _love_ coriander now.”

He passed the menu to the server and stared Goten dead in the eye.  He raised his eyebrows and smiled in that Goten Way of his. For some reason, it pissed him off.  Goten couldn’t pretend to still know him. Not after all this time.

Even so, when his food came, he surreptitiously picked off the coriander leaves.  Goten smirked to let him know that he saw him, but didn’t say anything.

He thought back to his melancholy train of thought about how the spilled coffee was a metaphor for his life and he was beginning to think that that was now especially true.

\--

“So who is he to you?”

Trunks was surprised that Mai waited to spring herself on him until that night.  Knowing her, she would have grabbed him right outside of the restaurant and demanded answers.  She waited until Trunks had his microwaveable mac’n’cheese and was settling down to see what horror movies were on Netflix before she banged on his door.  Now she sat on the couch where he was trying to have dinner (because his crappy little one bedroom apartment had a kitchen but no room for a seating area) and demanding answers.

“He was my best friend,” he said because it was easiest.

It said so little, though.  Goten was more than that. They spent every moment they could together until they didn’t.  Couldn’t. After everything. This had to be some kind of revenge on his mother’s end. He would have to stop by tomorrow and give her a piece of his mind...which was, of course, exactly what she wanted.

Life seemed so much easier before this afternoon.

“Your best friend?” she repeated. “He looked more like an ex.”

“He’s not,” he insisted.

“Hmm.”

She didn’t sound convinced but he wasn’t going to continue to argue.  Maybe it would mean she would stop trying to set him up with someone. He could hardly stand the parade of losers that had made their way through his life in the past year, let alone since his unceremonious dropping out and the depression that followed.

“So you’re fine working with him, right?” she asked, “because I know you’re kicking it here because you have nothing better to do but this business is my life, okay?  I don’t want any petty bullshit getting in the way.”

Trunks nodded and held his hand in a boy scout salute.

“Absolutely.”

He knew how important her business was to her.  Mai had fallen in love with wedding planning after she planned the wedding for her mothers.  She took out loans and worked tiredly to build herself and her business up. That she even let Trunks in with his absolute no experience was a true testament of their friendship.

“No feelings?”

He rolled his eyes and emphatically stuck his fork in the little plastic cup that held his macaroni.

“No.  I haven’t seen the guy since we were teenagers.  I was just...surprised.”

That was one way to put it, anyway.  It _was_ a surprise.  Seeing Goten, seeing how _good_ he looked.  How hot...Trunks shoved a forkful of pasta into his mouth.  It tasted like cardboard but he swallowed it anyway.

“Okay, so then there’s this guy who started working at the florist we use--”

“Absolutely not.”

Mai had the audacity to look insulted.

“What?”

“I’m not going out with anyone you recommend,” he said resolutely. “It has never ended well.  Besides, I don’t trust your taste. I’ve seen the guys _you’ve_ dated and I’m not impressed.”

She waved a hand. “That’s because you’re my best friend.  You’re supposed to hate them.”

“No?”

He felt his ears go hot at the mention of “best friend.”  True, Mai was his best friend _now,_ but someone had had that claim for a long time.  Until he didn’t. Now he was working with him. Determinedly, he shoved more pasta in his mouth.  He couldn’t let it be that ominous. Goten was just a caterer. They would talk to him about dishes and on the day of the wedding and that was all.

Quick and painless.

Even so, Trunks was going to have a talk with his mother.

\--

Visiting his childhood home always felt wrong these days.  He was supposed to be here, working at Capsule Corp with his mother.  He was _gifted.  A genius._  He never had to try at anything growing up and then university came and when he didn’t immediately excel at his classes, when the overwhelming pressure of his family name and his own shortcomings hit him, he bottomed out.  Dropped out and gave up on studying robotics. For a couple of years he got data entry jobs or freelanced on fixing up people’s computers. Until Mai saved him from his stale, dead-end life. He wasn’t a romantic but he liked the payoff of planning weddings.  The celebrating, the joy. It made him feel better and didn’t at all remind him of his romantically void life.

He had let his mother know he was coming since she was a busy woman and, without a care, she had cleared her afternoon.  Trunks didn’t want to tell her that her ploy worked because she would never ever admit that it _was_ a ploy to get him to drop by.  Mostly he avoided the house to avoid her disappointment.  He was his mom’s shining star and now look at him. He couldn’t even afford brand name microwave mac’n’cheese.

He drove around the main office building and the lab compound to get to his family’s actual house.  No sooner had he parked his car did his mother come barreling out of the door, arms outstretched.

“My baby!” she exclaimed as if there weren’t still two children living in her house.

Trunks got out of the car and accepted her hug.  It felt nice, being hugged by his mom.

“How are you?” she asked. “How is the wedding planning going?  I heard Mai’s uncle’s business went under. _Such_ a shame, but they _had_ been struggling.  But--”

“I know.  You called Chi-Chi.”

His mom touched his cheek and smiled.

“Did you do it so I’d come visit you?”

“No.  I did it so you’d see Goten.”

To hear her say outright struck him in a strange way.

“What?”

“You two were inseparable.  I don’t know what happened but I want you two to be friends again.”

He felt anger surge in his chest.  Trunks did anger well, just like his dad.  Good at hiding it, better at showing it. He wanted to kick a chair or something but there was nothing here except his car.

“I’m turning twenty-eight next month, mom.  I don’t need you interfering.”

“So isn’t it time to heal and reconnect?”

He wasn’t going to have this conversation.  Not outside, not with his mother who he hadn’t seen in months, not ever.

“Whatever,” he said. “Is dad here?”

She shook her head. “No, he’s helping your nonna with something at the theatre.”

Trunks could imagine.  His paternal grandmother was a stage actress turned director and she was constantly having issues with her actors or tech people who weren’t performing to her exacting standards.  She often brought his father in to intimidate them into giving her the “raw emotion” that she wanted.

“Bulla’s there, too.” His mother smiled proudly. “She got cast.”

He let himself smirk. “Gotta love good ‘ol nepotism.”

What could have benefitted him if he hadn’t been a dropout loser, more than likely.  A job at Capsule Corp. Doing what he was good at. Not that he _wasn’t_ good at planning weddings, it just wasn’t what he saw himself doing.  Not what he and Goten would talk about when they would lay out at night, looking at the night sky.

“Come in,” she urged. “I want to hear everything about this wedding and how much of a bitch Vados is being to you.”

His mother linked her arm through his and led him into the house.  When she was like this, smiling and joking, he couldn’t stay mad at his mom.  Even if she meddled. Even if she wanted him to patch things up with Goten. As if they could be.

\--

Goten plugged his ears but the pounding techno music still played on over and over in his ears.  He hated coming to photoshoots but he had to ask advice and this was where he was due to get it.

He knew he was going to see Trunks but knowing it and seeing him...they were different.  He looked good. Skinnier than before but still unfairly gorgeous, coffee stain and all. Goten hadn’t realized how much he had missed him until he saw him hastily drop into the seat next to Miss Gemini--Mai, he reminded himself.  The apparent inheritor of Goten’s role of best friend. She was lucky that Trunks was gay. He couldn’t imagine him ruining _that_ friendship with a one-and-a-half night stand.

But it was before then, too, wasn’t it?

Touches that lasted just a moment too long.  Crowding together at a concert and not letting go.  Trunks’s graduation night at the beach...Goten squeezed his eyes shut.  Past was past.

He watched his uncle pose for the camera with only minor embarrassment.  Truly, it _was_ impressive that he still modeled, but he was still his _uncle_ and seeing him greased up in underwear and jeans was a bit much.

Uncle Lapis was his best bet for advice.  His parents never knew about him and Trunks and his brother was a dead loss.  He stumbled into his picture perfect relationship with his wife, Videl.

But advice on what?

Seeing Trunks had _disquieted_ him to be sure but he was an adult.  He had a degree in hospitality management _and_ he went to culinary school.  He had been a goddamn James Beard Award nominee at age twenty-four.  He turned down working for Jean-Georges so he could merge his paternal grandmother and his maternal grandfather’s businesses together into a viable online catering business.  He was _thriving._  Professionally anyway.  He didn’t really have time to date.  A hookup here or there through dating apps but nothing substantial.  That was probably why seeing Trunks in person, smelling that bergamot cologne he still wore under the freshly spilled coffee, sent his mind into a spiral.

Maybe he _did_ need advice.

The photographer called it quits and he waited until his uncle was wearing clothes again before he approached him.

“Goten, hey.” He swiped at his face with a makeup wipe. “What’s up?”

“What makes you think anything is up?”

He shielded his eyes against the lights surrounding the makeup table and was glad when his uncle deposited the wipe and walked towards the doors to the studio.

“You don’t just ‘show up’ to a shoot unless something is up,” he said simply, evenly. “Are you going to finally take my advice and do promotional shoots for the business?”

“What?  No...well, maybe.” He shook his head. “It isn’t about that.  So, uh, know how Bulma set me up with that wedding planning thing Launch’s daughter has going?”

He hummed a bit in acknowledgement.

“And that Trunks is her partner on it.”

“Ah.  Yes. Your ‘ex.’”

They walked into the chilly night air.  Halloween was still a couple weeks off but it was already getting colder and colder at night.  The other night there had been a freeze warning. Goten hated it. He loved the sun, being outdoors, being nearly naked in the heat.  He hated winter.

“Do you have to put finger quotes around it?”

“Well, what do you call someone who you had a one-and-a-half night stand with?”

Goten sighed.

“I still wish Uncle Raditz hadn’t blabbed.  I told him that in confidence.”

“In his defense, he didn’t tell me.  I walked in on him stomping around talking about how he was going to risk Vegeta’s wrath by pounding him into the dirt for hurting you.”

His uncle’s concern still touched him these years later, even if he didn’t believe it.  As protective as his uncle was of him, he adored Trunks.

“So you’ll be working with him?”

“Kinda?  Sorta? I mean...yeah.” He sighed. “I thought I was ready for it, but then...seeing him...”

He always thought that if he ever saw Trunks again, he would deck him.  Instead he just wanted to crawl into his embrace. No, before all that. He wanted to take his hand and sit with him the way they used to.  When they would face one another and try to reach each other’s minds. How it sometimes worked.

“Mm, I understand.”

Did he?

He honestly didn’t know much about his Uncle Lapis.  He knew he had been a model since he was a small child (even though his true passion and his “real” job as he called it was being a park ranger), and that he had met his Uncle Raditz when he had taken his motorcycle in to be repaired.  That was a brief period he vaguely remembered from his childhood where they were broken up but they had been back together for years, stronger than ever. Maybe that was to what he was referring.

“Do you still have feelings for him?”

Goten laughed hollowly.

“Please.  I saw him for all of forty minutes at a restaurant.”

Where Trunks absolutely had to be a stubborn _ass_ about goddamn coriander, which he clearly still hated.  Seeing him pick it off had filled him with vindication but he had said nothing.  Trunks being as obstinate as he used to be was kind of heartwarming. Knowing the years hadn’t severely changed him.

Uncle Lapis hummed a bit as he unclipped the carabiner from the loops of his jeans.  It didn’t escape Goten’s notice that they were the same ones from the shoot and he wondered if they knew he had just absconded with them.

“I’m not hearing a ‘no.’”

Goten sighed and jammed his hand into his pocket for his own keys.

“I’m not...it’s just...be quiet.”

Still in his pocket, he clenched his hand around the blade of the key, feeling the teeth dig into his palm.  His uncle smiled smugly and he didn’t have a response to that.

\--

Mai couldn’t make it to the tasting because of course she couldn’t.  She had car trouble because she ignored every malfunction light on her dashboard.  Sometimes she went to the length of putting a sticky note over it. And she called _him_ stunted.

Instead Trunks had to face the future Lordes by himself.  No--not entirely by himself. Goten was there, too. He had cooked the tasting plates and now sat next to him, wearing his chef’s coat with the sleeves rolled up.

Trunks watched Vados, the bride, sample each dish.  She wasn’t the typical description of a “Bridezilla.”  She wasn’t shrill or demanding. She was, however, extremely exacting.  She wanted everything how she wanted it and would tirelessly “follow up” with him or Mai no matter the hour.  She tended to lean towards Trunks because he once irritably told her that he wasn’t getting paid enough to “deal with her shit” at two in the morning.

He figured he might have brought it on himself.

They had been hired by Vados because they had handled her brother’s wedding to his now husband.  Or her fiancé’s brother’s wedding. They were both related to the couple--whatever. Either way, Trunks took that as a good thing.  They were becoming increasingly well known and that was good.

“Fantastic!” she exclaimed. “This is amazing.”

“Which is this?” her fiancé, Champa, asked.  To Trunks, he looked like the absolute last guy to get married to someone as model stunning as Vados but, then again, what did he know?

“The lingonberry and cream cheese hand pies,” Goten replied. “I figure most people will want the cake but these will be a less sweet alternative.”

Vados nodded. “And these with the smoked salmon?”

“Cucumber, smoked salmon, and horseradish cream.”

Trunks was impressed.  Whenever he would stay over, Goten always made ridiculously elaborate dishes with whatever was on hand but he had apparently refined his skills over the years.

“What are your credentials?” Vados asked. “I mean, this is all good, but…”

Goten tapped the top of the meat thermometer sticking out of the pocket of his chef’s coat nervously.  Trunks knew that was his tell. He was a little embarrassed.

“Well, my grandmother’s deli has been around since the eighties.  My grandfather’s restaurant since the seventies. And I, uh, was nominated for a James Beard award three years ago.”

Vados was positively effusive after that, completely amazed.  Trunks couldn’t believe it either. He only knew of the award from watching _Top Chef_ with Goten.  He knew it was a big deal even to just be nominated.  He was successful, incredibly so, and he probably saw Trunks as a loser dropout who somehow stumbled into a decent job.

The rest of the tasting went without incident and Vados and Champa left assured that the blip in a catering company was just that--a blip.  Their faith in Gemini Weddings was restored and they left with a new menu for their wedding.

“She seems nice,” Goten mused.

He fiddled with the zipper on his knife bag and glanced at Trunks.  They were technically alone now. Only the staff at the commercial kitchen in the venue was bustling around and they didn’t really care about them.

“A James Beard award, huh?”

He nodded, that embarrassed flush rising to his cheeks.

“Yeah.”

“That’s incredible.  You’re. Incredible.”

He sounded like a moron.  Goten cocked a brow like he didn’t trust him and could he blame him?  He was the one who screwed him over--literally--and left him behind. Who got swept up in his own bullshit that he fucked it up with the person who had been the most important to him for so long.

“So how are things?” he asked loudly.

Goten picked up his knife bag and started to leave and he followed him.  There wasn’t anything left for him to do here anyway.

“Fine.  We’re getting a lot of gigs--it’s nice.”

“Catering, then?  Instead of working in a restaurant?”

That was what Goten always said he wanted.  He wanted to be executive chef of a fancy, expensive restaurant.

“I did that for a little bit.  But the burnout rate’s high and hours were miserable.” He gave a ghost of a smile. “I’m happier doing this.  Working with my family.”

“You seem happier.”

He wanted to ask more.  He wanted to know if he was seeing anyone.  If he still remembered the night in Trunks’s dorm room or at Goten’s parents’ place after.  Or before that, his graduation night on the beach.

“And you...didn’t see you as someone to plan weddings.”

Trunks schooled his face into a look of shock. “Excuse you?  I am _dead_ romantic.”

Goten laughed and then he stared downwards as if he was punishing himself for laughing.  He didn’t like not knowing what he was thinking but he had done that to himself, hadn’t it?  He had ruined everything they had had. Everything they could have.

“Where are you living?” he asked.

“I’ve got a place,” he said, “I’m living with Bardy and I make him taste test.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you have to twist his arm.”

They walked into the stark, cold mid-afternoon sun.  A memory hit him: after he had exiled himself from everyone and everything.  Goten’s cousin sending him angry texts. He had still been a teenager, then, but he had to be...twenty-three now.  Shit. Time passed. He looked at Goten. Not that he could tell looking at him. He was bigger, broader, and his hair was longer but he was still Goten.  He looked the same. He looked _amazing._

What did he think of him?

No, that was a bad avenue to go down.  He screwed things up for good before they even began and had no one to blame for himself.

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

Goten stopped at his car and turned to look at him.

“What?”

“If that’s what you’re asking.  I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Oh.  Good. Me neither.”

He thought he saw a twitch of a smile but that could also just be his face.  Goten’s lips curled up ever so slightly at the corners, giving him a constant sweet, approachable look.

“See you around, Trunks.”

It wasn’t outright dismissal--right?  Trunks didn’t know what to do so he just waved.

\--

“You can’t honestly think he wants to get back together with you.”

Marron was always blunt but sometimes she outdid herself.  Talking to her was risky because she could tell Bardock who could tell Goten but he needed to talk to someone.  His world was too damn small.

Ever since he saw him, he was feeling some kind of way.  It was like seeing Goten made all of his memories from before come flooding to him and he wanted nothing more than to go back to it.  The life he had before when he was Trunks the Wonder Boy.

Maybe that was it.  It wasn’t Goten, it was the life he had before he dropped out.  But if it was, it wouldn’t be fair to him and it would end the way it did before.

He needed help and he asked Marron because she knew him best other than his family.  Other than Goten.

Mai was there, too, since she could provide fresh insight.  And because they had to contact the florist later to make sure everything was running on schedule.  But mostly because she was his friend.

“Oh, please.  If I even--if he even.” Trunks let out an agitated cry and ran his fingers through his hair. “I want to be friends again first.”

It was enough of the truth.  More than anything--he missed him.  He didn’t realize how much he had missed him, how empty his life had been, until he saw him again.  He couldn’t just shut off everything they had had together that had been ruined.

“You haven’t been around,” Marron reminded him. “I will say that Goten’s only dating _nice_ people now.  What he deserves after the bastards he’s loved in the past.”

“He said he’s single,” Trunks said smugly just to watch the knowing look fall off of her face. “And I’d prefer it if you stick to the singular there.  I pride myself on being the only bastard he was ever in love with.”

Marron shook her head.

“You’re still a piece of work, Briefs.”

“He is,” Mai chimed in. “Never acts his age.”

“Stunted.  It’s tragic, really.”

Trunks glared between them, not believing what he had to hear.  They were talking about him as if he weren’t there. Of course they would hit it off immediately with him as the target.  Ugh--he probably should be more discerning when it came to introducing Mai to people from his past.

“Could you both stop?” he groused. “Look, I’m not looking to start something up again with Goten.  But we’re going to have a _professional_ relationship and I.  I don’t know. Want to...be friends.”

They sent him matching amused looks.

“Yeah, I know.  Kinda lost steam at the end there.”

He waited for the follow-up but Mai waved a hand dismissively.

“Okay, whatever.  Enough about whatever happened in the past.  We need to call the florist because Vados wants stargazer lilies and I don’t know what she’s going to do if we can’t get them.”

\--

Goten was glad that work was steady.  They averaged about three or four gigs a week and they had this wedding to work forward to.  His conflicted feelings for Trunks aside, being the go-to for a wedding planner was an amazing opportunity.  Sometimes he wondered if he did the right thing, but the restaurant world wasn’t for him. You had to have ice water in your veins and Goten just--didn’t.  He was too much of a marshmallow.

It was one decision he didn’t regret, at least.

The more the days wore on, the more he was certain that seeing Trunks did far more than disquiet him.  He felt out of joint, flipped upside down. It was like a reopened wound. He still remembered how he froze him out after everything.  He froze out everyone but for Goten it hurt the most. Not just what happened between them but that they had always been able to tell each other everything.  Had always worked things out together. That he wouldn’t even talk to him hurt more than anything.

These thoughts clung to him more readily since he was home alone.  Bardock was helping his dad at the garage and so he had the place to himself.  He had been meaning to sketch out plating concepts for the Lorde wedding but his mind kept going elsewhere and that “elsewhere” led to Trunks.  Having him in his life again, at least in a professional manner, was odd. He’d missed him but he had let his anger overwhelm him over the years to pretend that he hadn’t.

And what did he want?

Goten had never considered himself a prideful person.  He wasn’t going to pretend to be above wanting to be Trunks’s friend again.  If he knew he had been wrong, at least. That was the issue. Trunks was the most stubborn person he had ever met and he refused to budge or admit his failings.  Goten would never tell him that but he figured that was why university messed him up so much. He had to confront his own shortcomings.

He dropped his pen on his notebook and sighed.  He was thinking in circles. Hadn’t he done that enough to himself years ago when this _first_ happened?  As if attuned to his brain waves in the worst way, his phone vibrated.  He saw the name and was surprised that Trunks still had the same number after so long.  But what could he possibly be texting him about? Did he feel the same pull to one another that Goten did, despite his greatest efforts to fight it?  Did he want to go all-in and try to ignore everything that happened and regain their previous friendship and level of closeness?

 **Trunks:** _can you bake a wedding cake?_

It was innocuous to the point where he nearly cracked up.  He typed back a message.

 **You:** _i mean theoretically yes but i’m not a pastry chef_

The reply was nearly instantaneous.

 **Trunks:** _see that’s what i TOLD her but she wanted me to bug you anyway_

It had to be Vados.  Trunks had mentioned that she was very exacting when it came to her wedding.  “She had seemed so chill when she hired us!” Mai had explained.

 **Trunks:** _she’s like your biggest fan now--sorry for unleashing her on you but you’ll probably have steady work after this_

 **Trunks:** _not that you don’t already i’m sure_

He wasn’t sure what to type back.  His emotions were all over the place and he felt like a goddamn teenager again.

 **You:** _it is_

He never liked typing anything on a phone.  He felt like he was more articulate in person--though not by much--and he hated having to type something only for autocorrect to bungle it up and he had to retype it.

 **Trunks:** _you still hate texting huh?_

Goten nearly dropped his phone.  It was the coriander all over again.  Were they this in each other’s heads even now?  He wasn’t sure if he was warmed by this or annoyed.

 **You:** _shut up_

Trunks sent back an emoji sticking out its tongue and Goten didn’t know how to respond.  This was getting dangerously close to flirting and he didn’t think they could broach that territory yet.  If he even wanted to.

There was still something nice, though, about having Trunks back in his life.  Something familiar. Like coming home, even if he never left. He put his phone down to work on the plating sketch.  Out of the corner of his eye, he waited for it to vibrate again. When it didn’t, he pretended he wasn’t disappointed.

\--

Whenever Goten didn’t quite know what to do, he went home.  It wasn’t a great slog. His family home was two blocks away from the deli, which was two blocks from where his grandparents lived and only a block from the apartment he shared with his cousin.  His brother, even, had moved in down the street. His entire world was in a comfortable grid. Trunks had hated it. He said he was too used to his comfort zones. That everything he wanted couldn’t be within that grid.  He was right and wrong. He had to leave it to go to school, to realize his dream, but he liked coming back to it. He liked being around his family.

This morning, he was eating breakfast at his parent’s house.  His mom stood at the window, holding a mug of coffee, watching his dad.

“Check him out,” she said.

Even though he was a chef who had worked in Michelin star restaurants and had job offers from several big names in the culinary world, this kitchen was where his mother ruled.  She wouldn’t even let him touch the stove. He, at least, could do the dishes and he was elbow-deep in suds when his mom beckoned him over to the window.

Wiping his hands on a dishrag, Goten stood next to her to see what she saw.  It was his father in their backyard, wearing his boxers, safety goggles, and nothing else as he hunched over timber.

“He’ll pencil a line,” she explained, “and then he’ll stand back forever, thinking about whether it’s right or not.  Next, he’ll run his fingers of it, looking for splinters and if there’s even one, he’ll file it back. With my nail file, of course.  Jackass.”

It was an insult laced with affection, of course.  Now, at least. Goten remembered when he was in school and his parents had nearly split.  When his mom went to stay at Gohan’s for four months. He was never quite sure how they fixed it but it somehow led to his father taking his time with things now like timber.  Like his mother.

“Go help him,” she urged even though the dishes were half-washed.

He figured that his mother had to know that something was up.  He was on the other side of his twenties now and, unless it was some kind of family event, he only came when he needed to center himself.

He walked outside.

Even in his hooded sweatshirt, it was too cold and he immediately regretted not tossing his coat on.  How could his father stand being out there in nothing except his boxers? He looked at the big slab of timber on the workbench.  His Uncle Lapis had taken him and Bardy and his niece Pan into the woods to teach them about trees, but he hadn’t retained any of it.  He also couldn’t really discern what a tree looked like when it became timber instead. It was a nice red color, though, he thought.

His father was building a table for his grandma Gine.  For so long she had complained about how there wasn’t enough room around the table for everyone to fit comfortably.

“Straddle it, will ya?” his dad asked.  He grabbed hold of the electric saw. “Hold it still.”

Goten cringed. “I’d rather not.”

His father, when he thought his actions through, was substantially less clumsy than Goten who had literally stumbled through his teen years.  More than once, Trunks would have to grab hold of the back of his shirt to keep him from tumbling off of the sidewalk when he tripped over an imaginary groove in the pavement.  He had trained himself out of it because clumsiness in a kitchen could mean grave injury (“or death!” his culinary instructor’s words cried in his head), but the fact was that he didn’t trust his father with the saw.  He grinned goofily at his hesitation.

“Aw, come on.”

He was still a big kid sometimes and, truly, he appreciated it, which was why he straddled the timber.  He kept his eyes closed, though, until the saw switched off.

“So what’s up?”

He could have played it cool and demanded to know why he thought anything was up but he was a crap liar and his parents could always see through it.  Whenever he wanted to sneak out or go to a party, Trunks would be the smooth talker, telling his parents how he was sleeping over at his place where they were doing homework and _definitely not_ drinking and doing dope.

Trunks--that _was_ the problem still, of course.  All of his memories were inextricably tied with him.  Even the years passed where he focused on his goals, on his job, they paled in comparison to the lifetime they had spent together.

His dad lifted his arm to stretch out a muscle and Goten reached over to poke him in his stomach as a distraction.

“What’s this?” he asked, voice wavering with fake awe. “Looks like flab.”

A funny look passed over his face and he pulled his safety goggles off to look at him.

_Don’t.  Don’t try to scrutinize me because you’ll come out with some assessment that sums me up perfectly and I can’t take that right now._

Instead, his dad smacked his abs and grinned. “Watch this body.  It’s what yours’ll look like one day.”

It was true enough.  Goten always knew that if he ever wondered what he would look like twenty or forty years down the line, he simply had to look at his father and grandfather.

“Mom noticed it from the kitchen,” he lied. “She was like ‘ugh, look at that carcass.’”

Before he could react, his dad hooked an arm around his neck to pull him into a headlock.  They struggled for a bit, both killing themselves with laughter, until he let up.

“She didn’t seem to have a problem with it last night.”

He tried not to choke at the idea of whatever his parents got up to the night before.  Goten looked to the slab of wood instead. It was going to be a very nice table, really.  Big enough for all of them.

“So why’re you here, Tenny?”

No sense in lying now.

“Trunks is back.”

His father fidgeted with the strap of his safety goggles and pursed his lips.

“Hmm.  And what does that mean?”

A good question.

“Dunno.  We’re working together, though.”

“Right.  The wedding thing.” His dad laughed. “I can’t see Trunks planning weddings.  Remember when you were little and he would sneer at Disney movies and tell you that they were unrealistic?”

Of course he did.

“Yeah.  But he says he likes it.”

“Do you believe him?”

One of the most frustrating things about his father was that he was a mass of contradictions.  It used to drive him mad when he was younger. His dad could be boneheaded one minute and then shrewd and observant the next.  He never knew which version of his dad he was going to get and it had led to them butting heads a lot during the summer before he left for school.  “You’re too alike,” his mother had said. “More than just looks.” He hadn’t known what she meant by that, but the thought made him drift back to Trunks.  How he told him once that his mom said the same about him and his dad whenever they argued. That they both “felt too much.” Maybe that was why Trunks behaved the way he did after it all.  But all he had were theories. He never got any answers as to why.

He turned to look at the timber again.

“The table’s gonna be nice, huh?”

\--

Trunks had gotten used to being on his own.  He had perfected it in his self-imposed exile.  For the first few weeks, after he dropped out, he went back home to his childhood room and did nothing but stay in bed and feel sorry for himself.

Now, if he wanted, he could stay in his bed whenever he wanted and feel sorry for himself without worrying about his mother coming in and throwing the sheets off him to shove different job contacts in his face, but he had work to do.  After the Lorde wedding, they had to find another booking. Normally Mai handled that but she was pushing for him to do more in-person stuff. She wanted to put his face out there because “it’s a nice face when you let it be,” whatever that meant.

There was a bridal expo the day after the wedding and Mai insisted that they go so he was ordering more business cards because it gave him a sense of purpose.

He wasn’t sure what was going to happen after the wedding this weekend.  Clearly, Goten’s food was a hit and would more than likely prove to be a hit with other couples.  They would definitely be working together after this wedding and he had to assess what that meant.  He meant what he said about them being friends again. He had forgotten how good having him in his life was.  Even though he was mad at him in a way that was probably irreparable, seeing him filled him with aching nostalgia and something else that wasn’t rose-tinged from the past.  Regret, maybe, or something more.

It wasn’t just the one-and-a-half night stand.  Before that, at his graduation, when they had all gone down to the beach.  Goten had come even though he still had another year because they never went anywhere without each other, then.  There was too much drinking and too much emotion, but he remembered everything. How warm the water felt and how they had stripped to their underwear and gone in.  He drove by the beach now and then, since it was on the way to their florist’s and he still couldn’t believe they went in. Couldn’t believe they didn’t somehow drown.  It had been dark, the water, and darker with the clouds over the moon but he had known exactly where to find Goten. He hadn’t even realized he had been looking until his hands curled around his waist.  Their mouths connected, tongues taking over, while his brain foggily warned him like a distant, muffled siren.

His mouth had been everywhere and he remembered water beading off of Goten’s dark hair, so beautiful it was like night itself was dripping off of him.  Their hands had searched, their fingers searching, kneading--

And then they had come back to themselves and laughed about it, the sound of it drowning under the crashing surf.

Trunks shook his head at the memory and went back to staring at paper weight and sizing like he could understand any of it.  What was wrong with their old business cards anyway? He opened the saved design and ordered three dozen of them. Mai had loads in boxes at her place, but he felt a sense of accomplishment nonetheless.

A knock came at the door and for one, foolish moment, he thought it was the business cards.  His next thought was _Goten,_ but he pushed that aside just as quickly.

Chances were that it was Mai even though she rarely ever knocked and preferred to simply use her spare key to barge in.  It could have been Marron back for round two of telling him all of his flaws.

Either way, the person wasn’t leaving so he stood up to let them in.  It was his father, wearing a leather jacket and a grimace. Looking at him reminded him of the date.  Two days before the wedding, four before Halloween.

“Happy birthday.”

His father curled a lip and pushed past him.

“You got anything to drink?” he asked brusquely.  A pause. “This place is a shithole.”

“Gee, thanks.”

It wasn’t a far off assessment.  His apartment was small and cluttered with too much crap.  He never felt the need to dust or vacuum and it showed. When the sun came in through the windows, he could see the particles floating in the air.  It wasn’t that bad, though, he thought privately. He did the dishes, at least. Took the trash out.

His father found a bottle of wine and poured it into one of his plastic cups.

“Hello to you, too,” he said irritably. “And you could ask.”

He was pushing it, he knew.  His father waved the bottle.

“Fine.  Hi--can I have some of this shitty, six dollar white wine?”

“It was eight dollars,” Trunks said, wounded.

His father gave a smirk and poured a second cup.  That was what was weird about his dad. He was rude and grouchy, and it took him years to understand him.  He still didn’t, fully, and they had had explosively ugly arguments when he was growing up. He had spent nights talking to Goten endlessly about it, thinking that he was why he had this sickness that slept in his head.  This ugliness. Goten had told him to snap out of it and to stop going on about ugliness and oblivion. His mother had helped, too, getting to realize how bullheaded and similar they were.

He had frozen his father out along with everyone else and he thought that what progress they had made was gone but--he had softened significantly when his sister and brother were born.  He had never asked how his parents met but he knew from his Uncle Yamcha that they had spent a long time pretending they weren’t in love until they were forced to confront it. Trunks had a sinking feeling that he had been the reason for that.

“How’s the play going?”

“Your nonna is going to kill someone and I’m going to have to help her hide the body.”

His father walked over and passed him the cup.

“You’re a good son.”

He made a face but clinked his cup to his.  Trunks sipped the wine and eyed his father warily.  He didn’t just “drop by.” No one did. After his initial bust up, it was an unspoken agreement that Trunks had to initiate contact.  No one had to force him, which was probably partially why he was in his predicament. Everyone just let him be to stew and ruminate in his shitty life.  Not that he could truly blame his friends and family. Everything was on him in the end.

“What’s up?”

“You’re turning twenty-eight in two weeks and you’re still acting like a teenager.” His father took a long sip of wine and scowled down in it. “Sweet shit.”

“I like sweet shit.”

“Whatever.  When are you going to grow up and fix this shit?”

“What shit?”

A glare.

“Can it be fixed?”

“If you try, it can be.”

That was a bullshit platitude and he could tell his dad only halfway meant it.

“Did mom send you?”

“She told me what she did.”

The meddling.  Bringing Goten back into his life.  Right.

“What do you care?”

He snorted. “Because I’m your father.”

That wasn’t the answer he was expecting.

“Really?”

“Don’t look so surprised.”

“Hard not to.”

They stood, then, at an impasse with their cups of wine.  It was a quiet challenge, the most fraught relationship, his mother always said.  The one between Trunks and his father. He idolized him and hated him and loved him.

“I’m only going to say this once,” his father said. “You need to fix it with him.  You can’t fix dropping out or anything because that isn’t something that has to be fixed, but you can fix this.  You can’t let shit stay broken.”

Stay broken.

“You want me to be a part of Goku’s family?” he asked after all of that.

His father cringed. “For your happiness, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

Trunks took a sip of his wine.  Decided to press his luck.

“You’ve gotten soft in your old age.”

The reaction was exactly what he wanted.

“Fuck no I haven’t,” he said, teeth clenched. “And call me old again to see what happens.”

Not sure what else to do, he put his cup down and laughed.  Pulled his father into a hug. He heard him make a sound through his teeth but he hugged him back, careful not to spill his wine.

“We won’t tell mom about this,” Trunks promised. “She’ll never let us live it down.”

\--

Goten was clearly stressed the day of the wedding.  Trunks was lucky Mai did most of the heavy lifting and he just checked in with everyone to make sure things were going smoothly.  The ceremony went off without a hitch and the cocktail hour was winding down. Vados was thankfully distracted by her own happy day not to bother him with five hundred details and he could mostly relax.

Until he saw Goten.  He was banging around the venue’s kitchen, cursing and sweating.  His hair was pulled back and he was carefully plating.

“You alright?” he asked.

Goten looked up and their eyes crashed together.  It was different from one-sided texting. Different from the restaurant.  They had always been a study in contrast. Goten was equal parts soft and firm and Trunks, at his peak, had been broad-shouldered but lean and wiry.  His hair had been thick and dark whereas his own had been pale purple and fine. Blue eyes to black. Complementing each other. Night and day. Sun and moon.  He had forgotten that part in his headrush from seeing him. The swelling of old feelings. The talk with his dad about not letting things stay broken.

“No,” Goten said finally. “I prepped as much as I could but the stoves here took a while to light and the staff isn’t properly trained and…”

He trailed off and sighed.

“I’m fine.  It’s turning out.”

The plates looked good, anyway, which was as far as Trunks’s culinary knowledge went.

“I can help you take it out,” he offered.

He smiled that sweet, beautiful smile and Trunks was nineteen again.  In his dorm room, holding Goten against him. Feeling him against him while their hands worked with one another, keeping quiet so they didn’t wake up his roommate.  And then properly at his parents’ house while they were out, making love in the living room in a pile of blankets. How afterwards, he got his failing marks and devastation set in.  How he stopped answering his texts, stopped going around to see him. Dropped everyone. Dropped himself.

“That would be great,” he said, his voice soft and bringing Trunks back from his thoughts.

He didn’t want to just do that.  He turned on the staff and barked at them to get in line and listen to everything Goten said.  Trunks, problem-solver. The wonder boy. He wasn’t that now but he had this and he was good at it.  Goten smiled at him again.

They served the guests and he caught Mai noticing him helping but he wouldn’t meet her eye.  As far as she was concerned, he was helping their business. Have it run smoothly and efficiently.

When it was over, Vados thanked him and handed him a separate check as a “tip” for how much she had annoyed him.  The cool and calm woman he had met with for the booking was back, and he was glad. He didn’t think he could handle even receiving the check if she was going to get on him about how he deposited it or anything.

He sat with Goten in the kitchen, drinking from a bottle of beer.

“How was your first wedding?”

Goten plucked at the label of his bottle and shrugged. “Alright.  Better when you helped.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that.  It felt like they crossed a bridge that he hadn’t known about.

“You ready for the next one?”

“I think so.”

They fell into silence that wasn’t charged but it wasn’t empty either.  Years lay unspoken between them.

“Do you want to come with us to this wedding expo tomorrow?” he asked. “We’re ‘networking.’”

He fully expected Goten to say no.  He was a chef and a caterer. He wasn’t going to go to a wedding expo to look at linen companies or whatever.  Hell, Trunks didn’t even want to go and it was his job. It was an olive branch. A step in making sure things didn’t stay broken.

“Sure,” he said after a moment.

It was acknowledgment.

“Goten--”

He shook his head. “Not now.  Not here.”

He didn’t get what he meant but at the same time he did.  Trunks nodded.

“Right.”

\--

Goten didn’t know what a “wedding expo” entailed but it felt a lot like a wedding convention.  He half-expected to see people cosplaying brides or something. Mai attacked it with ruthless efficiency, passing out their card to several couples walking around.  She would gesture to him, list his accomplishments, and say he was their caterer. Goten didn’t have any cards with him. Usually their work traveled by word of mouth and through his grandmother’s friends and longtime customers.  He was pleased to see that the place was inclusive, though, and spotted several gay couples looking at the different booths in the event room.

It was a bit much to take in at once.  It was also quite another thing to spend all of this time with Trunks.  It wasn’t in a professional setting, not really. They were here on business but it felt so much like hanging out.  They wandered from booth to booth, looking at the different offerings.

“Check it out,” Trunks said, pointing. “You can A-Ha your wedding tape.”

Goten came up next to him. “You can what?”

The person at the booth looked bored and unwilling to answer him so Trunks did.  He gestured to the screen.

“You can make your wedding video look like the music video for ‘Take On Me.’”

“Why would you want to do that?”

Trunks laughed. “Exactly.  Wedding people are so weird.”

He couldn’t resist the urge to jab him in the side. “You’re wedding people technically.”

“Am I, though?”

He wasn’t sure what to say with that.  There was an unspoken, uneasy truce between them.  They clearly wanted to talk about the past years but neither had found a right time or place to bring it up.  He also wasn’t sure if he could handle that conversation or where it would go. Talking to his parents hadn’t really helped but they had given him some kind of center.  He wondered if Trunks talked to someone, too, and that was why he was being more assertive beyond sending him texts.

Together they wandered through the booths.  Trunks had a slim stack of business cards but he wasn’t very good about handing them out.  He figured, though, that Mai was doing enough work for the three of them.

“There’s a whole booth for mason jar lights on strings,” Goten observed.

“Frightening, isn’t it?”

He nodded.  They had made the mistake of wandering too close, though, and a woman drew close to them.

“Hello!” she chirped. “Are you boys looking for a rustic touch for your wedding?”

Goten’s mouth went dry.  She thought they--that they were.  He laughed too loudly. Trunks pursed his lips.

“Uh.  We’re.   _I’m_ a wedding planner.  He’s our caterer. We’re just.  Looking.”

Goten nodded vigorously.  God, this was embarrassing.

“Oh, I was just wondering.  You make a nice couple. Are you at least dating?”

She didn’t know what she was digging herself into.

“We don’t want your mason jar lights!” Trunks exclaimed, showing a flare of his old temper.

Somehow that broke the tension and Goten burst into laughter.

\--

Trunks had no plans for Halloween.  He had no parties to go to, no work until they got another wedding, so he had time to sit at home and watch horror movies on his laptop.  He could drink seasonal beer and think about how his birthday a little over a week away.

It wasn’t unbearable.

The past week or so had been a doozy.  Seeing Goten, talking to his father, the wedding.  Being in a weird sort of friendship flux with him now.  Something happened when the mason jar woman mistook them for a couple.  He was sure of it, embarrassing though that scene was. He couldn’t put a name on it but they were finding their way back to each other.  He didn’t think it would end romantically but that would be above and beyond. He wanted that distantly but mostly he just wanted him back in his life.  He had had a hole he had only been acutely aware of that opened in an aching wound when he realized how much he had missed him.

Trunks opened a bottle of beer and plopped down on his couch.  Of course someone took that opportunity to knock on the door. His apartment building wasn’t doing trick-or-treating so he didn’t know who it could possibly be.  Mai was doing something with her moms and his family was preoccupied with taking his five-year-old brother out. Little Boxer was obsessed with Halloween so his mother made a huge deal out of it for him.

He put his beer down and paused _Hellraiser_ to get up and answer the door.

“Hey.”

Goten stood on the other side looking amazing in a burnt orange sweater and brown cords.  His coat was draped over his arm.

“Your mom gave me your address.  We should talk.” He was straight to business.

Such a loaded statement.  Trunks stepped aside to let him in.

“This is your place?  Looks cozy.”

He shrugged. “It’s just me so.”

Goten nodded and threw his coat over the back of the couch.  He seemed at home here, strangely. Like he wanted him in here, with him.

_One step at a time, Briefs…_

“First off…” He drew in a breath. “Do you remember the night at my parents’ place?”

Trunks nodded.  How could he forget?

“Do you remember what happened afterwards?”

He wasn’t sure what he meant.  Goten paced around the couch, grabbed up his bottle of beer and took a swig without asking.  Maybe he was remembering their previous closeness, too. They never had to ask when they wanted a bite or a sip of something.

“You told me to get up, naked--I thought we had hit the most intimate we could have been because we just had sex, but I.  When you told me to stand there and it was freezing and I felt so exposed. Like you could see _everything._ My guts and bones and...”

He remembered that now.  The view of him, naked and perfect.  Burnished gold and onyx. Unashamed but still apprehensive.

“I’ll never forget your voice when you said I was gorgeous.  I was in love with you in that moment.”

He dropped the bottle back on the coffee table and plucked at a stray thread on his sweater sleeve.  He was fidgeting. Nervous. Trunks wanted to reach out to him, but he couldn’t.

“And then you dropped out and you didn’t call.  You didn’t text.” He balled his hands in fists. “You hid and you left me there, naked, and for so long.  For _so long,_ I felt raw.  Don’t you ever ask someone to do that.  To-to bare their soul and everything else and then to leave it.”

He stared past Goten at the frozen visage of Frank Cotton and his puzzle box on his computer screen.

“I know you were hurt and I know you felt like you failed yourself and everyone who ever called you gifted but it was fucking cruel, no matter how much upset you were with yourself.  We had had each other our whole lives and now that we were just starting on something new, you disappeared.

“And no matter how many accolades I got or how many good reviews and job offers, I would still think of it.  Standing there naked and having it be a big joke on me.”

Trunks stared at him and didn’t even hesitate before he started talking.

“I remember,” he said, “I haven’t forgotten anything about that night.  But you always saw through me, too, even with my clothes on. Like that ugliness I was afraid of when we were younger.  That comes from my family. The dramatic streak. The bullying one, too. And how I was screwed at school but that night and the time in my dorm, you made it go away.  But it was still there and I just. I panicked. And by the time I came out of it, it was done. It was broken. _We_ were broken.”

Goten stepped towards him and he realized for the first time that he was taller than him now.  Not by a lot but he was.

“Broken,” he repeated. “It’s not.  It wasn’t. Not then, Trunks.”

“And now?”

Goten mashed his mouth against his and he held him by his sweater and felt the whole of him pressed against him, mouth and tongue and teeth.  His body. His beautiful, rough, capable hands. The flutter of his long eyelashes against his cheeks when he blinked. Trunks was blathering, “I’m sorry” over and over into his mouth but he soon figured out it was understood.  Like everything else. They were back on that understanding. Like a wall came down. Like when they were little and would try to read each other’s minds.

It was growing between them again.  A bridge they could cross. Together.

\--

They had his birthday dinner at his parents’ place.  Everyone was there and acting like he had been away and had just come home.  In a way he had, really. He wasn’t stewing. He had a job he liked that made people happy.  He had a good friend and business partner who didn’t let him wallow in his crap.

His sister was telling him about the drama at the theatre while his grandma interjected with angry diatribes of her own about this person or that like Trunks had any idea who they were.  Boxer kept waving his mother’s cell phone at him, telling him to look at his Halloween costume.

“You should plan Marron’s wedding,” Goten’s cousin Bardock said loudly.

She punched him in the arm. “We aren’t getting married yet.  Shut _up,_ Bardock.”

She sent a sympathetic look to her boyfriend, Uub, and then shot a glare back at her cousin.  Trunks ignored them and glanced at his dad who stood near his mom. She had her arm around his waist.  His dad looked over and arched his brows. Trunks waved at him. He didn’t want to say that his talk helped but he probably could tell that it did.

He glanced towards Goten who was talking to his parents.  His dad had made a big deal to Trunks’s mom when he came, telling her about the table he was building and how he could build her one, too.  This, of course, prompted his dad to say that he could build his own damn table and Trunks was beginning to think that he was going to be conscripted to help.  He found, though, that he didn’t mind. He had spent too much time away from everyone. From his family. From these people who all know way too much about him.

“Hey.”

He turned and saw Goten with his hands in his pockets.  They had seen enough of each other in the past week, but he didn’t think he was going to get sick of him any time soon.

“Two years closer to thirty,” Goten teased.

“You’re on your way there, too,” he reminded him.

He cringed a bit so Trunks held his arms out.  Goten went into his embrace and kissed the side of his neck.  He was definitely going to savor this. Make up for all the missed years.  Pave the way for new ones.

“Can you plan your own wedding, you think?” Goten asked.

“You thinking about it?”

He shrugged. “Not any time soon, but…”

It didn’t sound scary.  Trunks grinned and kissed him.

“If I can’t then Mai can.”

Goten grinned and kissed him back.

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com
> 
> also i want to let everyone know that even though i'm terrible at responding to comments, i love and appreciate every one i get on stand alone fics or rb au fics. you all are incredible and it really helps me keep writing


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